"I was very proud of our team for finishing the game today. We have been in this situation many times against a handful of teams and have not been able to close the game. I am really proud of a few players on our team. I thought Kionna [Kellogg] had a great first half. I thought Micaëlla [Riché] was absolutely outstanding tonight, both offensively and defensively. Sari [Noga] did a great job on Maggie Lucas and knocked down a lot of threes. It was a great team effort. It was a great win for our program."

On the good shooting night:

"I think we took great shots. I think we had a lot of shots at the rim with Micaëlla. I think her dominating inside really opened things up for Rachel [Banham] and Sari. When you have a post presence, you are tough to beat."

"Definitely. It is tough when you go on losing streaks, but this can be the beginning of a big (winning streak). Mike Tirico came and talked to us. He said we could choose if we wanted three more games or 11 more games. I think that was a good pep talk."

On motivation from the men's game:

"Yeah. It is great to see our guys do well. They had been struggling too, so it is good to see that we can get out of a rut just like they did."

Penn State Head Coach Coquese Washington

On what they can take away from this game:

"Have to play better defensively; our worst defensive performance probably the whole entire season. We just didn't do a good job from start to finish defensively."

On the message to the team in the locker room:

"That very thing. We have to play better defensively is we're going to go to Nebraska and have success there. We've got to do a better job guarding everybody. They had everybody do what they wanted to do. We have to do a better job of dictating on the defensive end of the floor."

On how the Gophers were able to get open to shoot 66%:

"They got a lot of points in the paint. When you're shooting lay-ups, it's easy to make those. Then [Sari] Noga got free way too many times. I think she hit five or six three's, I don't think she missed a three-point shot. When you have division one players, they can make wide up shots so if you give them lay-ups and wide open threes, you're going to give up 90 points. That's exactly what we did."

On how to refocus the team:

"We've been a better defensive team all season long. I'm not worried about our ability to get back in and defend better. We knew coming here was going to be a tough game, it's a tough place to play. They play very well at home. Now we have to go to Nebraska and it's another tough place to play. It's going to be their senior night and they're going to have a big crowd. We have to just refocus and have better energy on the defensive end."